Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

In winter 1998 my boyfriend and I were invited to a 30th birthday weekend in North Yorkshire. Around 25 people were accomodated in a secluded camping barn. On the first night we all walked up a dirt track and along an unlit road to the nearest pub. We were living in Birmingham at the time.
Also in 1998 my brother began his undergraduate studies in Newcastle. Although we were close we had not been in touch with other for a couple of months. It was before we had mobile phones and we were lazy with letters.
Back to the pub in North Yorkshire. We were having a great time.

My son, Jacob, had a sister born on his birthday, 27th September, he married a lady whose sister was born on the same date, one year later, 16th January, and they subsequently had two sons with the same birthday, 7th September. I would love to know what are the chances of this happening!

When buying my first house, I looked around dozens of homes for sale in Bristol - somewhere I'd lived for a couple of years (I grew up in East Anglia). After weeks of searching I was shown one home and got the immediate feeling that this was the one to buy. Not unusual I know, but six months later, after buying the house and moving in, my aunt was doing some family research and discovered that my great great great uncle used to live in the very same house. I had no previous knowledge that any of my distant relatives lived in Bristol.

I regularly used to be late for work, my supervisor became increasingly annoyed and gave me a good telling off. The next day I overslept so I made up a story about my cat bringing a blackbird into the kitchen and having to wait for my neighbour who liked animals to return from dropping someone at the station so that I could ask her to come in and remove the bird. Since everyone in the office knew I couldn't bear birds the story was accepted and nothing more was said. The next morning, the entire situation happened exactly as I had lied about it the day before.

I dreamt one night that I was at work. The emergency evacuation alarm went off followed by an announcement which seemed very confusing. With other colleagues I tried to find my way out of the building, but the lights went out, and it was rather scary and in my dream we got lost.
Next morning I told a colleague while we were standing at the coffee machine.
That lunchtime I went out to do some shopping and to spend a short time in St James' Park. When I got back this colleague told me that I had missed an emergency evacuation.

I was on holiday in London in the old days of concertina wooden doors to telephone kiosks in Piccadilly Underground phoning my Aunt and I asked her when she had last seen her brother - my Uncle. I moved position in the box and discovered he was on the phone in the next box

Some years ago I attended a course in Canterbury. Of the 20 or so attenders three of us were parents, with a total of five children. Out of these, two shared the same birthday: 29 February (different years).

When I was 15 or 16 (1960/1961) I decided to ring my pal who lived down the road. I picked up the phone to dial and there wasn't a dial tone. Whilst I was waiting for a dial tone to come on, my pal spoke (to himself) saying something like 'where is he'. I had picked up the phone to ring him at the point in between him dialling the last number at his house and the phone ringing at mine.